Time and the Biblical Hebrew Verb

Few questions in Hebrew grammar have been argued over as long as what the verb actually encodes: tense, aspect or something else. John A. Cook comes to it after a decade of research, and his answer sounds traditional at first, identifying the qatal and yiqtol forms as perfective and imperfective. What sets it apart is the modern linguistic footing beneath it. He describes the system as aspect prominent, argues that each form carries a general meaning, and shows how its particular tensed, aspectual and modal uses follow from that meaning in context.

Later chapters turn to how verbal semantics interacts with discourse, proposing a theory of discourse modes to explain the temporal relations between successive clauses. A careful, fair-minded study for Hebraists, biblical scholars and linguists who want the old debate reframed rather than simply rehearsed.